Now, in one of the latest presentations, the Japanese organization posted an abstract of new situation on one graph.

If nothing changes, CHAdeMO will not be eliminated, but new public fast chargers will in a few years need to have Combo 2 plug as an obligatory feature. CHAdeMO and other systems will be optional.

Private fast chargers like for companies with fleets of cars will still be able to have solo CHAdeMO chargers.

“CHAdeMO members and collaborators continue to increase, one by one, the number of CHAdeMO fast chargers installed in Europe. In April 2014, CHAdeMO Europe attained the 1,100 mark of publicly accessible chargers installed in Europe, across 27 countries.”

“In a clear recognition of this effort, and of CHAdeMO Europe’s repeated calls to embrace multiple types of connectors in a single charger, the European Union has adopted the final draft of a directive for the deployment of an alternative fuel infrastructure that endorses CHAdeMO multi‐standard chargers. With this, the EU has aligned its legislation with the market reality, as the mainstream products in the European market today host multiple types of connectors, allowing all drivers of EVs equipped with either CHAdeMO or Combo2 connectors to benefit from a single charger.”

Because CHAdeMO has outnumbered cars with other standards, currently most charging station operators will probably be willing to set up multistandard chargers, which means that in the foresable future, CHAdeMO will remain strong in Europe.

And this graph carries additional information, including that maybe Tesla Superchargers – treated as private, could exist too.

According to CHAdeMO Association, the cost of multistandard chargers will be 5-10% higher than a single standard unit.

It’s not going to happen in Japan. Japan is very protective of it’s domestic auto industry (ask any foreign automaker selling cars there). Plus CHAdeMO is already “de facto” there with the government giving even more support to build more; see the $1 billion grant in the news recently.

Even Tesla realizes this and is making an adapter for CHAdeMO (if it weren’t for the Japan market, the adapter might not even exist) and so far they have no concrete plans for superchargers there.

Not understanding your logic. EVs in Japan only have AC J1772 and DC CHAdeMO connectors. Generally AC charging is for residential use and DC charging is for public use.

Since Japan has no vehicles making use of connectors other than CHAdeMO this is no need to support another standard. Japan is also way-ahead of other countries in requiring PEV auto manufactures to support PEV infrastructure with universal access. (see Friday’s announcement posted on InsideEVs in a related article)

I don’t care which plug “wins”. But one thing is obvious to me: as long as the fight between Japanese and European car makers over the plug “standard” lasts, the EV market as a whole suffers in the affected region. EVs are already struggling to gain consumer acceptance, and charger networks with multiple incompatible standards will just confuse things further. Fighting over tiny early-adopter markets while damaging the future growth prospects of the industry doesn’t seem like a wise strategy.

You said, “Fighting over tiny early-adopter markets while damaging the future growth prospects of the industry doesn’t seem like a wise strategy.” Statements like this lead me to believe that the you’ve picked your “winner”, and it’s not the worldwide standard that is the same in every country with almost 4000 deployed and almost 150,000 compatible cars on the road !!! Let me guess; is that the “tiny early adopter market” that you’re referring to? It was comical when GM was telling us how GM and German auto makers would be taking over the world with their niche charging standard that is not even the same between GM and German cars !!! To date, several years later, that niche charging market has about >>> 10 <<< public charge stations in the US and all but seems abandoned by GM. No announced plans to litter the US with their niche standard. BMW has announced that some dealers would install charge stations, but you won't likely be charging your GM car there. Nissan has announced privately that they will actually ramp up CHAdeMO installations for their 115,000 cars worldwide, and as we already know, their are no restrictions in place or planned… Read more »

Tony, you can believe what you want, but no, I don’t have a dog in this race. I just want the fighting to be over ASAP. You, on the other hand, seem to be slightly biased. 😉 But your argument is a bit confused. For starters, GM and the European car makers are not pushing for the same standard. GM and the other US car makers are pushing for an SAE (Type 1) standard in the US, the Europeans for a VDE (Type 2) standard in Europe. The only commonality between them is that they both use combo plugs, i.e. requiring only one receptacle in the cars for AC and fast charging, whereas Chademo (not being a combo plug) requires two. Furthermore, I don’t have a big problem with different regions adopting different standards, since very few people move their cars between different continents. This also makes sense due to differences in the existing infrastructures in various regions(e.g. a Type 1-based combo system wouldn’t make sense for Europe due to the popularity of 3-phase AC). However, I would like to see every region converge to a single plug. In Japan, Chademo is clearly dominating due to the early TEPCO deployment… Read more »

I’m a fan of EV’s and what is best for EV’s. If that makes me a “fanboy”, then I happily accept the title.

I don’t have any illusions that CCS is going away… of course it won’t, as long as GM and their German counterparts support it.

The same is true of and of the other standards. Without support, it will whither. So far, GM and their German counterparts have worked hard to get support in various legislative bodies to force acceptance of their standard.

Almost without exception, they have failed to prevail with a CCS only world. So, perhaps it’s you that needs to be told that CHAdeMO isn’t going away!!!

Public charging, let alone fast charging, is really a non-issue. The vast majority of EV trips don’t involve public charging. Since EV owners rarely go beyond the city, and city commutes average 30-50 miles, only home charging is required.

As a Leaf owner, I admit appreciating that fast charging does give me more weekend getaway options, but for longer trips I would rather use an ICE car. Only the most ambitious drivers are willing to sit charging a half hour for every hour of driving. Fast chargers only become a real consideration when EVs get twice the range (as Tesla knows).

I considered the Leaf vs the i3, and I would have ordered the i3 despite no Combo chargers near me, had I not found a year old used Leaf for half the price. As for the “confusion”, EV owners quickly learn about Plugshare which features filtering by charger type…

I’m more than a whole year in my RAV4 EV and still never needed a public charger. Once, I plugged into a free charger where I was already going to park, but I really didn’t need to charge. Never used an ICE car because of range for any trips either.

James, try explaining J1772, Chademo, CCS combo plug etc. to your mother … you’ll see what I mean by confusion. 😉 Us early adopters are willing to research these things, but for the mass market it has to be simple. Also, this is just as much a game of perception. Many consumers will just see that companies are still fighting over the standard, conclude that the products are not mature, and will be even less likely to jump in than they already are.

The original proposal of eliminating CHAdeMO (and any other standard other than CCS) was supposed to address this. It would have established CCS (Type 2 version) as the sole standard in Europe, just they did with Type 2 for AC charging (Type 1 J1772 and Type 3 EV Plug Alliance are not allowed).

And despite the spin of the CHAdeMO Association the EU didn’t endorse CHAdeMO (or any other standard/connector other than Type 2). They just *tolerate* multi-standard chargers. They never named CHAdeMO.

The IEC is a global organization (similar to ITU or ISO), not a “EU standards body”. Jake is correct in that the EU directive does not explicitly mention (let alone endorse) Chademo or any other non-Type 2 standard.

This is getting really nitpicky, but no, Type 3 has not been endorsed. Type 3 is not Combo 2, but the old EV Plug Alliance standard. You are correct that the IEC specification for Combo 2 is 62196-3, but it is based on Type 2.

And the directive explicitly mentions “Combo 2”, the Type 2 version of the Combo connector. “Combo 1” would be the Type 1 version version used in the US. There is no such thing as a “Combo 3” (a Type 3 version of the Combo connector).

Type 3 realistically is pretty much a dead connector standard, given EU’s move to support only Type 2 for AC charging. It only lives on in spirit in terms of the Type 2 connector having a version that has a physical shutter (that was the big issue the Type 3 backers had with Type 2).

You wrote, “Public charging, let alone fast charging, is really a non-issue. The vast majority of EV trips don’t involve public charging. Since EV owners rarely go beyond the city, and city commutes average 30-50 miles, only home charging is required”.

This myopic view that every is just like you is not what will expand EV’s to the unwashed masses:

1) not everybody has a place to charge at home and therefore require public charging.

2) even with “averages” means that some trips are longer and therefore require public charging.

3) not everybody has the money or inclination (or maybe even the parking space) to have a “spare” oil car and therefore require public charging.

More important that connector plug types, the EU Directive on PEV Infrastructure needs to set operational requirements for DCFCs. EV stations need universal access without membership requirements; realtime station status available to EV drivers, and DCFC deployments based on number of PEVs in use in a region. There also needs to be redundancy to DCFC, as a single point failure shouldn’t block travel along any EV enabled coorridor.

Reliability, redundancy and availability are way more a priority than charging protocol standards. Today a public station can appear on a map without physically being deployed; or out-of-service with no way of knowing unless visiting the station. We need an open protocol to communicate station status. This is just one example all charging protocols fall short.

Instead of picking one protocol from an existing list, how can we enhance all charging protocols to make the EV public charging experience better?

Perhaps in fthe uture all EV plug will only have a + and – pin and all communications will be by a WiFi wireless connection? This would simplify any required adaptors between plug types. 😉